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  • April 24, 2008 | International Edition

    Kurer confirmed as new UBS chair after AGM

    UBS general counsel Peter Kurer has been confirmed as the new chairman of the Swiss banking giant following its annual general meeting yesterday (23 April). Kurer, who has been acting as chairman of the board in an interim capacity, takes up the top role with immediate effect, his appointment having been approved with 87% of the vote. Shareholders additionally voted to reduce the terms of the board of directors from three years to just one.

    1 minute read

  • April 24, 2008 |

    Kurer confirmed as new UBS chair after AGM

    UBS general counsel Peter Kurer has been confirmed as the new chairman of the Swiss banking giant following its annual general meeting yesterday (23 April). Kurer, who has been acting as chairman of the board in an interim capacity, takes up the top role with immediate effect, his appointment having been approved with 87% of the vote. Shareholders additionally voted to reduce the terms of the board of directors from three years to just one.

    1 minute read

  • April 24, 2008 |

    Bakers makes second City partner hire of 2008 with K&L Gates property recruit

    Baker & McKenzie has made its second London partner hire since the beginning of the year - bringing in a partner from Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis for its property team.Justin Salkeld is set to join Bakers towards the end of next month and will advise on a variety of real estate work including acquisitions, disposals and lettings.

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  • April 23, 2008 |

    Central and Eastern Europe: Centre of attention

    Law firms that invested in Central and Eastern Europe soon after the fall of the Iron Curtain are enjoying the region's enduring economic boom and seeking shelter from the London gloom. Dominic Carman speaks to partners across the region, from Vienna to Kiev

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  • April 23, 2008 |

    Corporate Counsel: Soft landings

    It is Wednesday afternoon and Paul McNulty is searching for his taxi outside Dulles International Airport. The former deputy attorney general and current Baker & McKenzie partner is just back from an overnighter in Houston, where he spoke to a group of 25 general counsel.His topic? How to handle federal investigations, of course. After all, McNulty did write the memo that governs federal prosecutions of corporations. While general counsel might not like the spectre raised by the McNulty Memorandum, if they have to comply, who better to consult than its author?

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  • April 17, 2008 |

    Bakers makes slick move with lead role on $2.25bn Russian oil merger

    Global law firm Baker & McKenzie has taken a lead role on a cross-border merger worth $2.25bn (£1.14bn). The firm advised West Siberian Resources as it merged with Alliance Oil to form a combined oil company operating across Russia and Kazakhstan. The mandate is a coup for the firm's corporate team, which worked opposite Clifford Chance (CC) on the deal, which took three months to complete.

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  • April 16, 2008 |

    Corporate Counsel: Credit where it's due?

    Swiss banks are probably not accustomed to playing practical jokes on 1 April, but the business community could have been forgiven for thinking that UBS was engaging in some April Fool's Day shenanigans when it announced that its general counsel, Peter Kurer, would be the new chairman.Such a move does not happen very often and, according to a raft of City commentators, neither should it. Indeed, if proof were needed of the suspicion in which lawyers are held by large parts of the business community, Kurer's appointment provided it.

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  • April 16, 2008 |

    Diary sports special: jogo bonito comes to Legal Week

    Never mind the pulse-quickening Premiership climax or English clubs' magic circle-like hegemony of the Champions League semi-finals - the beautiful game will be at its most dazzling later this month as the sixth annual Legal & Financial Cup, in association with Legal Week, fast approaches. Thirty teams will be taking part (and taking each other apart) in this year's competition, which is held in sunny Lisbon on 18-20 April and is organised for the legal and financial services sectors by London sports agency Top Corner.

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  • April 14, 2008 |

    Top law schools tighten hold on US elite

    The US' top law schools have tightened their hold on jobs at the country's largest law firms, according to new research by the National Law Journal. Fifty-five percent of 2007 law graduates from the 20 top-ranked law schools took jobs with firms in the NLJ 250 - up from 51.6% in 2006.

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  • April 10, 2008 |

    Top lawyers rally in support of under-fire UBS chair Kurer

    City lawyers have jumped to the defence of Peter Kurer whose promotion from general counsel to chairman of troubled banking giant UBS last week drew extensive criticism from the press and banking community. Kurer has been accused by critics - including former UBS chief executive Luqman Arnold - of lacking the relevant experience to do the job. In a widely published letter Arnold explicitly criticises the appointment of a lawyer to replace former chairman Marcel Ospel.

    1 minute read